Sur-Ron: under-the-hood detailed look by Luna

the first 4min of this video shows basic overview and user interface of a complete stock bike
...but then they switch to another bike that is going thru a total tear-down; you see a close look at the rear suspension and battery, frame construction, throttle control and tilt switch modules, plus internal look of the controller box....last they show 'mods' with a larger rear sprocket and different controller

"Ely Schless is happiest when he’s making something. Mostly he likes
making motorcycles, but he likes making bicycles, electric cars, mountain
bikes, and batteries too. When he saw the 12" travel Monster T Marzocchi
Bomber Z1, a new mountain bike downhill fork, he took a Scott motor (the
same as Electrathon used), bought a Bomber, and with the help of Brett
Gober designing and fabricating the frame, they hacked together their first
“powered mountain bike” in 1997."

Schless' increasingly motorcycle scale electric bicycles inspired Brammo, Zero, Quantya and a host of others. Some would say none of that would have happened without the combination of Ely Schless and the Marzocchi Bomber Z1. In 1997. Schless actually rented Brammo it's first shop, back before they even knew what an electric motorcycle was.

Thanks, but that Ely guy is the man - he's the real wealth of information. I must have about 150 emails from him... just kind of an unassuming quirky guy who just happened to show his crazy stuff to all the right people. It perfectly illustrated the threads in the book - a guy builds arguably the first electric bicycle/motorcycle because he found a killer front fork from a mountain bike - then everybody took it from there.

I was literally in the last few weeks of writing the book, and this guy who shall remain unnamed said, hey, let me introduce you to my friend Ely. It was like I found the mother lode - he literally tied up the front, and the back of the whole story. (I was like, exactly what were you waiting for, to tell me about this guy? )

I think we need to start talking about this eMotorBike?...so please, on-topic

I'll start by pointing out that manufacturer name "Sur-Ron" is not actually the 'name' of this eMotorcycle, I think that is only used in the USA, but elsewhere its called "Firefly" or "Light Bee" ....as the company is also working on a more typical steet eMotorcycle called something translated into English as "Angel" or "White Ghost"....I'm sure their names are way more cool and meaningful in Chinese

I hope(if Luna does a 'part 2' or someone else does a further teardown video) they show more of the quality of construction that went into the motor and swing-arm pivot concentric 'jack-shaft'
...as some of the design decisions seem odd if the only things they were concerned about were simplicity and low cost...clearly they focused on more than that; and aren't just repeating what has been done before....many of these details will take some longer term use to find out how they pan-out, but I think thats maybe what they are going for(longer reliability and ease of use)...like with this system; the chain will require less maintenance and adjustment, the secondary belt might also be functioning as a 'cush drive'....I also like how the charge level gauge is simply built into the removable battery, with then a very simple speed/odometer on the bike....tho I wonder why they didn't include a mudguard(fender) for the front tire

I would still consider this as a 'recreational' toy for the US market, without much hope of it ever becoming street legal here; but maybe elsewhere and in the future I can see where motorbikes of this size being quite useful to urban commuters...not that people haven't been strapping engines/motors and batteries to bicycles for years and this is something new; but I think its important to acknowledge the slick design of this bike, esp at this level of build quality for this low of price

The model I saw on there was 48V with the 3kW Golden and a controller of their design. I don't know if you've ever worked with a Chinese controller, but it's not something I ever care to set eyes on again... lol For about 3 years I was trying to do a side business fixing that crap for people, and finally gave up. It's a no-win.

So yeah, other than the appearance (and the name), what about this seems so compelling to you? It looks to me like just another mid-drive underpowered bicycle.